Certainly not going to knock these folks for making the trip, but I guess eleven years in the star power starts to wain. I would expect that most of the good ole boys that make up our heroic fighting force don’t know who any of these folks are.

Strasberg is, of course, encased in bubble wrap and is being kept in an undisclosed, underground bunker until spring training and couldn’t make the trip. You can’t be too careful.

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Why the hell would the troops want to meet these people? I guess the singer and the comedian can sing and comede, so there's at least the chance of entertainment there. But what does one get out of a visit from Craig Stammen?

Kellie Pickler... heh.... first came to my attention for her stunning ignorance of baseball when interviewed on WGN after singing the 7th inning stretch. Seems to have found a niche with her image as the adorable dumb blonde.

What I hear regularly from my ex-military students and friends is that the gesture does indeed matter. The expression of gratitude and sacrifice and effort and support that goes into making a visit matters. And c'mon.... if I had a chance to, say, play catch with an MLB pitcher, even one I'd never heard of before, or get an up-close exhibition of a random MLB hitter taking BP, I'd find that pretty damn cool. Especially if it was my only scheduled down-time amidst patrols in Afghanistan.

If they were married on Dec. 1st, they've had 10-12 days in Hawaii, and one would assume they were initially planning a three-week honeymoon before the tour materialized (awhile back) and then cut their plans to two weeks.

Though it's lots more fun to imagine them getting to Hawaii, hopping into bed, the phone ringing, and the guy reversing course halfway through undressing to catch the next flight out …

What I hear regularly from my ex-military students and friends is that the gesture does indeed matter. The expression of gratitude and sacrifice and effort and support that goes into making a visit matters.

So regular people are more appreciative than the average BBTF persona? That's reassuring.

Then I did a Google image search for her name and understood what you were talking about in a couple of photos.

The best part is that she was not similarly endowed in her original run on American Idol. She came back a season or two later to do a guest singing performance and Simon Cowell called her out on the implants. Hilarity and discomfort ensued.